By Mark Brousseau
Hoping to make automated clearing house (ACH) processing more appealing to businesses – especially smaller ones – NACHA is doing away with its outdated opt-out provisions for Accounts Receivable Check (ARC) Conversion and Back Office Conversion (BOC) transactions.
The new rules, which will be effective March 18, reverse a longstanding policy that requires billers and merchants to let consumers choose not to have their checks converted to electronic debits. Merchants and billers will still have to give notice to customers that their checks will be converted.
NACHA sees the rules change as particularly important as smaller merchants and billers look at adopting ACH payments as an alternative to remote deposit capture (RDC), which allows businesses to create images of checks and deposit them electronically to a financial institution.
With ARC, billers are able to convert paper checks they receive from consumers at designated lockboxes into electronic transactions. With BOC, merchants can batch consumer checks throughout the day and convert them later—typically, in a back office rather than at the point of sale—into electronic debits. While ARC and BOC opt-out rates have been marginal, typically running well under 1 percent of all consumers, the handling of these exception items was a big hassle for billers.
“This is a step in the right direction for businesses,” says US Dataworks Product Manager Leilani Doyle. “Businesses no longer are required to offer opt-out indicators on their remittance documents or worry about honoring an opt-out provision, if they don’t want to. This simplifies remittance processing. But the fact is, a miniscule number of opt-outs have been requested since the ARC rule was introduced. And, consumers are only becoming more comfortable with electronic payments.”
What do you think?
Showing posts with label remittance processing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label remittance processing. Show all posts
Friday, February 4, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
10 Habits of Highly Effective Managers
By Wes Friesen, Portland General Electric
“Sow a thought and you reap an act; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”
Right in the middle of the quotation above is the importance of our habits. A habit is “an acquired mode of behavior that has become our common practice.” Our habits mold our character and ultimately determine our destiny in the world. Want to further develop your character and develop in to a highly effective manager? Intentionally pursuing and building worthwhile habits is the key.
Following are ten of the habits of highly effective managers. This is not an exhaustive list – but these will build a strong foundation on your road to increased management effectiveness:
1) Habit #1: “Expanding Self-Awareness.” Having a high level of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is essential to being an effective Manager – and EQ starts with having accurate self-awareness. Self-awareness can help us gain self-control and be helpful to people around us – not hurtful. Some tools to help expand our self-awareness include: get feedback from others such as using 360 degree surveys; have a mentor to speak into your life; and constantly seek feedback from others on how we are doing.
2) Habit #2: “Pursue Continuous Learning and Continuous Improvement.” Are you a perfect manager and person? Me neither! What we can do is to commit ourselves to be like-long learners and seek to continuously improve ourselves as managers and as human beings. I have been inspired by this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King: “I may not be the man I want to be; I may not be the man I ought to be; I may not be the man I can be; but praise God, I’m not the man I once was.”
3) Habit #3: “Always do the Right Thing.” Too many people have been victimized by the unethical behavior of those in leadership roles. Remember Enron? My co-workers and I at Portland General will never forget – we were owned by Enron at time of their bankruptcy and our retirement savings were decimated. Mark Twain said “Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.” My former pastor Loren Fischer said “it’s always right to do right” – and I agree.
4) Habit #4: “Be Results AND Relationship Oriented.” As leaders we are expected to get results – and we should. At the same time, building positive relationships is the right thing to do – and it leads to great results. One tool to help build relationships is to consistently practice the 3 Rs with people. Recognize people for who they are and what they do; Reward people for individual and team achievements; and show people Respect – everybody wants to be respected as the classic Aretha Franklin song emphasizes.
5) Habit #5: “Achieve Big Goals one small step at a time.” I remember a grade school friend telling me the following riddle: “Question: how do you eat an elephant? Answer: one bite at a time”. Get the point? We need to set long-term visions and big goals for ourselves and our teams. And we need to break down the journey towards the vision and goals into manageable steps that inspire others to move forward.
6) Habit #6: “See the glass as half-full.” Are you normally a pessimist or an optimist? Studies have shown that the most effective leaders are strong optimists. Being optimistic does not mean that we ignore the half of the glass that is empty. It does mean we are thankful for the half that is full, and we work together to fill the rest of the glass as best we can.
7) Habit #7: “Look for the win-win.” Effective managers don’t get locked into specific positions, but look for ways to meet interests of themselves and others so everybody gets something (a “win-win” versus a “win-lose”).
8) Habit #8: “Spend much time in Quadrant 2.” Stephen Covey popularized the importance of intentionally spending significant time doing “Important, Not Urgent” items. These include things like building relationships, reading and other learning activities, planning and thinking, exercise, etc. To spend more time in Quadrant 2, we need to spend less time in Quadrants 3 & 4 (i.e. “Urgent, Not Important” and “Not Urgent, Not Important”) activities like watching TV, playing video games and wasting time doing things that add no value to our lives or the lives of others.
9) Habit #9: “Enjoy the journey.” Management (and life!) is a journey – filled with both positive and negative experiences. The journey will be much more pleasant and we will go farther if we learn to laugh and be thankful. A Yiddish proverb says “what soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.” Studies have shown that laughter makes us physically and emotionally healthier – and more fun to be around too. Find a funny friend; enjoy a funny TV show or movie – and just laugh! Being thankful is also important. The reality is that we all have much to be thankful for, and our lives will be more joyful and productive if we learn to develop an “attitude of gratitude.”
10) Habit #10: “Remember - your health is your wealth.” Gandhi said “It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” Living a healthy lifestyle will increase your energy, stamina and emotional well-being – and help us be more effective in all that we do. A holistic healthy lifestyle includes developing and using our mental capabilities (read a good book lately or taken a class just for the learning?). We are also spiritual beings, and finding faith and serving others can nourish our spiritual health.
Let me leave you with a challenge to not settle for mediocrity, but to get in the game and go for management excellence. Listen to this President Teddy Roosevelt quote “It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doers of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly … who spends himself in a worthy cause.”
Wes can be contacted at Wes.Friesen@pgn.com.
“Sow a thought and you reap an act; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”
Right in the middle of the quotation above is the importance of our habits. A habit is “an acquired mode of behavior that has become our common practice.” Our habits mold our character and ultimately determine our destiny in the world. Want to further develop your character and develop in to a highly effective manager? Intentionally pursuing and building worthwhile habits is the key.
Following are ten of the habits of highly effective managers. This is not an exhaustive list – but these will build a strong foundation on your road to increased management effectiveness:
1) Habit #1: “Expanding Self-Awareness.” Having a high level of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is essential to being an effective Manager – and EQ starts with having accurate self-awareness. Self-awareness can help us gain self-control and be helpful to people around us – not hurtful. Some tools to help expand our self-awareness include: get feedback from others such as using 360 degree surveys; have a mentor to speak into your life; and constantly seek feedback from others on how we are doing.
2) Habit #2: “Pursue Continuous Learning and Continuous Improvement.” Are you a perfect manager and person? Me neither! What we can do is to commit ourselves to be like-long learners and seek to continuously improve ourselves as managers and as human beings. I have been inspired by this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King: “I may not be the man I want to be; I may not be the man I ought to be; I may not be the man I can be; but praise God, I’m not the man I once was.”
3) Habit #3: “Always do the Right Thing.” Too many people have been victimized by the unethical behavior of those in leadership roles. Remember Enron? My co-workers and I at Portland General will never forget – we were owned by Enron at time of their bankruptcy and our retirement savings were decimated. Mark Twain said “Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.” My former pastor Loren Fischer said “it’s always right to do right” – and I agree.
4) Habit #4: “Be Results AND Relationship Oriented.” As leaders we are expected to get results – and we should. At the same time, building positive relationships is the right thing to do – and it leads to great results. One tool to help build relationships is to consistently practice the 3 Rs with people. Recognize people for who they are and what they do; Reward people for individual and team achievements; and show people Respect – everybody wants to be respected as the classic Aretha Franklin song emphasizes.
5) Habit #5: “Achieve Big Goals one small step at a time.” I remember a grade school friend telling me the following riddle: “Question: how do you eat an elephant? Answer: one bite at a time”. Get the point? We need to set long-term visions and big goals for ourselves and our teams. And we need to break down the journey towards the vision and goals into manageable steps that inspire others to move forward.
6) Habit #6: “See the glass as half-full.” Are you normally a pessimist or an optimist? Studies have shown that the most effective leaders are strong optimists. Being optimistic does not mean that we ignore the half of the glass that is empty. It does mean we are thankful for the half that is full, and we work together to fill the rest of the glass as best we can.
7) Habit #7: “Look for the win-win.” Effective managers don’t get locked into specific positions, but look for ways to meet interests of themselves and others so everybody gets something (a “win-win” versus a “win-lose”).
8) Habit #8: “Spend much time in Quadrant 2.” Stephen Covey popularized the importance of intentionally spending significant time doing “Important, Not Urgent” items. These include things like building relationships, reading and other learning activities, planning and thinking, exercise, etc. To spend more time in Quadrant 2, we need to spend less time in Quadrants 3 & 4 (i.e. “Urgent, Not Important” and “Not Urgent, Not Important”) activities like watching TV, playing video games and wasting time doing things that add no value to our lives or the lives of others.
9) Habit #9: “Enjoy the journey.” Management (and life!) is a journey – filled with both positive and negative experiences. The journey will be much more pleasant and we will go farther if we learn to laugh and be thankful. A Yiddish proverb says “what soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.” Studies have shown that laughter makes us physically and emotionally healthier – and more fun to be around too. Find a funny friend; enjoy a funny TV show or movie – and just laugh! Being thankful is also important. The reality is that we all have much to be thankful for, and our lives will be more joyful and productive if we learn to develop an “attitude of gratitude.”
10) Habit #10: “Remember - your health is your wealth.” Gandhi said “It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” Living a healthy lifestyle will increase your energy, stamina and emotional well-being – and help us be more effective in all that we do. A holistic healthy lifestyle includes developing and using our mental capabilities (read a good book lately or taken a class just for the learning?). We are also spiritual beings, and finding faith and serving others can nourish our spiritual health.
Let me leave you with a challenge to not settle for mediocrity, but to get in the game and go for management excellence. Listen to this President Teddy Roosevelt quote “It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doers of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly … who spends himself in a worthy cause.”
Wes can be contacted at Wes.Friesen@pgn.com.
Are you Fred?
By Wes Friesen, Portland General Electric
“There is only one boss – the customer. If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will.”
Fred Shea was a postal carrier who really took to heart and embodied the following quote from Martin Luther King: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper (or work in A/P or A/R!), he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great sweeper who did his job well.’”
Fred provided exceptional service to all his customers, and constantly went the extra mile – he would even drive through the neighborhood to check on people on his days off! One of Fred’s very satisfied customers was motivational speaker and author Mark Sanborn, who wrote a book about exceptional customer service called “The Fred Factor.” I highly recommend getting the book and the video training series and going through it with your team.
Here are four cardinal principles about being a “Fred:”
1) Principle #1: Everyone Makes a Difference - every individual can choose to do his or her job in an extraordinary way, regardless of the circumstances.
2) Principle #2: Success is Built on Relationships - the quality of the relationship determines the quality of the product or service.
3) Principle #3: You Must Continually Create Value for Others, and It Doesn’t Have to Cost a Penny - you can creatively find no-cost ways to exceed expectations of your customers.
4) Principle #4: You Can Reinvent Yourself Regularly - every morning you wake up with a clean slate. We can choose to follow the advice of John Wooden’s father Joshua who taught “make each day your masterpiece.”
One tool to measure how well your team provides customer service, is to conduct a periodic customer survey. By analyzing the results of the survey you can reinforce what is going well, and identify areas that can be improved. Because people are busy these days, I prefer to keep the survey simple and short. Here is a sample survey that you can use as a starting place:
CUSTOMER SURVEY
Timeliness:
Are your jobs completed in a timely manner?
Below Expectations ____
Meets Expectations ____
Exceeds Expectations ____
Quality:
How is the overall quality of the work that our team provides for you? (same scale)
Responsiveness:
Is the staff responsive to your special requests? (same scale)
Helpfulness:
Do you find that our staff are helpful and offer solutions to your needs? (same scale)
Overall Performance: (same scale)
Are there services that you would like to see that are not currently provided?
What do you feel are some areas of strength in how we serve you?
What ideas do you have on how we can serve you better in the future?
Unfortunately Fred-like service is not common – as Roger Staubach says “there are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” Being a Fred is a choice – how will you and your team choose?
Let me close with a final quote to think about that comes from Andrew Carnegie: “There are two types of people who never achieve very much in their lifetimes. One is the person who won’t do what he is told to do, and the other is the person who does no more than what he or she is told to do.” Good luck as you commit you and your team to go the extra mile and be “Fred’s!”
Wes can be contacted at Wes.Friesen@pgn.com.
“There is only one boss – the customer. If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will.”
Fred Shea was a postal carrier who really took to heart and embodied the following quote from Martin Luther King: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper (or work in A/P or A/R!), he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great sweeper who did his job well.’”
Fred provided exceptional service to all his customers, and constantly went the extra mile – he would even drive through the neighborhood to check on people on his days off! One of Fred’s very satisfied customers was motivational speaker and author Mark Sanborn, who wrote a book about exceptional customer service called “The Fred Factor.” I highly recommend getting the book and the video training series and going through it with your team.
Here are four cardinal principles about being a “Fred:”
1) Principle #1: Everyone Makes a Difference - every individual can choose to do his or her job in an extraordinary way, regardless of the circumstances.
2) Principle #2: Success is Built on Relationships - the quality of the relationship determines the quality of the product or service.
3) Principle #3: You Must Continually Create Value for Others, and It Doesn’t Have to Cost a Penny - you can creatively find no-cost ways to exceed expectations of your customers.
4) Principle #4: You Can Reinvent Yourself Regularly - every morning you wake up with a clean slate. We can choose to follow the advice of John Wooden’s father Joshua who taught “make each day your masterpiece.”
One tool to measure how well your team provides customer service, is to conduct a periodic customer survey. By analyzing the results of the survey you can reinforce what is going well, and identify areas that can be improved. Because people are busy these days, I prefer to keep the survey simple and short. Here is a sample survey that you can use as a starting place:
CUSTOMER SURVEY
Timeliness:
Are your jobs completed in a timely manner?
Below Expectations ____
Meets Expectations ____
Exceeds Expectations ____
Quality:
How is the overall quality of the work that our team provides for you? (same scale)
Responsiveness:
Is the staff responsive to your special requests? (same scale)
Helpfulness:
Do you find that our staff are helpful and offer solutions to your needs? (same scale)
Overall Performance: (same scale)
Are there services that you would like to see that are not currently provided?
What do you feel are some areas of strength in how we serve you?
What ideas do you have on how we can serve you better in the future?
Unfortunately Fred-like service is not common – as Roger Staubach says “there are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” Being a Fred is a choice – how will you and your team choose?
Let me close with a final quote to think about that comes from Andrew Carnegie: “There are two types of people who never achieve very much in their lifetimes. One is the person who won’t do what he is told to do, and the other is the person who does no more than what he or she is told to do.” Good luck as you commit you and your team to go the extra mile and be “Fred’s!”
Wes can be contacted at Wes.Friesen@pgn.com.
Want to Improve Performance? Measure It!
By Wes Friesen, Portland General Electric
“Improving performance does not happen by accident. It is the result of a commitment to excellence, intentionality and focused effort.”
Peter Drucker was the considered the Father of professional management. He said “Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” Being in a management role provides us the opportunity to intentionally raise the performance levels of our teams – and the individuals that comprise them.
To improve the performance of our teams, we need relevant performance measures to inspire, provide a common focus and allow us to track progress. Here are some tools to help develop powerful performance measures:
Ask the Right Performance Questions
The Right Questions express the critical few things by which to judge our performance results. Put yourselves in the shoes of your key stakeholders (investors, customers, employees) and ask what is important to them?
Organizational Development expert Brad Fishel points out that when you answer the Right Performance Questions realize that some measures you develop in response will be Quantitative (numeric) in nature (e.g. how many pieces of mail were produced last month), but some will be Qualitative (subjective) in nature (e.g. how satisfied are our customers). Don’t ignore qualitative measures – consider the usage of surveys and other rating instruments. Fishel also says “Better to have subjective judgments about important questions than objective data about unimportant questions”.
Develop “balanced” measures to judge success
Effective teams add value to all important stakeholders and avoid a singular focus (e.g. being low cost) to the detriment of other important outcomes (e.g. high quality). Following are potential types of measures to consider. For each measure that gets used, we should have a target/goal to compare actual results against:
1) Productivity (productivity is simply a measure of Goods/Services produced divided by Resources Used)
2) Quality (e.g. reliability, accuracy, mistake free, meets requirements, etc)
3) Volume (how much is being produced)
4) Timeliness (are work products completed when needed)
5) Service (are customers satisfied with the service they receive)
6) Compliance (are postal regulations, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA, and other regulations being met)
7) Cost (e.g. measure overall costs and/or cost per unit)
Intentionally focus on improving performance
How can we strive to improve productivity and overall performance? Following are some tools to choose from:
1) Lay out a challenge (illustrated by the closing story)
2) Enhanced Training & Development
3) Provide recognition and use incentives
4) Pursue wise use of technology
5) Look for process improvements
6) Be a better servant leader and show more care for your employees
7) Solicit ideas from your team members
8) Learn from other successful teams
Let me close with the following story from the life of Charles Schwab, former head of U.S. Steel. Schwab said:
I had a mill manager who was finely educated, thoroughly capable and master of every detail of the business. But he seemed unable to inspire his men to do their best.
One day I asked him: “How is it that a man as able as you, cannot make this mil turn out what it should?” “I don’t know” he replied. “I have coaxed the men; I have pushed them; I have sworn at them. I have done everything in my power. Yet they will not produce.”
It was near the end of the day; in a few minutes the night force would come on duty. I turned to a workman who was standing beside one of the red-mouthed furnaces and asked him for a piece of chalk. “How many heats has your shift made today?” I queried. “Six” he replied. I chalked a big “6” on the floor, and then passed along without another word.
When the night shift came in they saw the “6” and asked about it. “The big boss was in here today”, said the day men. “He asked us how many heats we had made, and we told him six. He chalked it down.”
The next morning I passed through the same mill. I saw that the “6” had been rubbed out and a big “7” written instead. The night shift had announced itself. That night I went back. The “7” had been erased, and a “10” swaggered in its place. The day force recognized no superiors. Thus a fine competition was started, and it went on until this mill, formerly the poorest producer, was turning out more than any other mill in the company.
Good luck as you partner with your team and intentionally pursue a higher level of performance!
Wes can be contacted at Wes.Friesen@pgn.com.
“Improving performance does not happen by accident. It is the result of a commitment to excellence, intentionality and focused effort.”
Peter Drucker was the considered the Father of professional management. He said “Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” Being in a management role provides us the opportunity to intentionally raise the performance levels of our teams – and the individuals that comprise them.
To improve the performance of our teams, we need relevant performance measures to inspire, provide a common focus and allow us to track progress. Here are some tools to help develop powerful performance measures:
Ask the Right Performance Questions
The Right Questions express the critical few things by which to judge our performance results. Put yourselves in the shoes of your key stakeholders (investors, customers, employees) and ask what is important to them?
Organizational Development expert Brad Fishel points out that when you answer the Right Performance Questions realize that some measures you develop in response will be Quantitative (numeric) in nature (e.g. how many pieces of mail were produced last month), but some will be Qualitative (subjective) in nature (e.g. how satisfied are our customers). Don’t ignore qualitative measures – consider the usage of surveys and other rating instruments. Fishel also says “Better to have subjective judgments about important questions than objective data about unimportant questions”.
Develop “balanced” measures to judge success
Effective teams add value to all important stakeholders and avoid a singular focus (e.g. being low cost) to the detriment of other important outcomes (e.g. high quality). Following are potential types of measures to consider. For each measure that gets used, we should have a target/goal to compare actual results against:
1) Productivity (productivity is simply a measure of Goods/Services produced divided by Resources Used)
2) Quality (e.g. reliability, accuracy, mistake free, meets requirements, etc)
3) Volume (how much is being produced)
4) Timeliness (are work products completed when needed)
5) Service (are customers satisfied with the service they receive)
6) Compliance (are postal regulations, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA, and other regulations being met)
7) Cost (e.g. measure overall costs and/or cost per unit)
Intentionally focus on improving performance
How can we strive to improve productivity and overall performance? Following are some tools to choose from:
1) Lay out a challenge (illustrated by the closing story)
2) Enhanced Training & Development
3) Provide recognition and use incentives
4) Pursue wise use of technology
5) Look for process improvements
6) Be a better servant leader and show more care for your employees
7) Solicit ideas from your team members
8) Learn from other successful teams
Let me close with the following story from the life of Charles Schwab, former head of U.S. Steel. Schwab said:
I had a mill manager who was finely educated, thoroughly capable and master of every detail of the business. But he seemed unable to inspire his men to do their best.
One day I asked him: “How is it that a man as able as you, cannot make this mil turn out what it should?” “I don’t know” he replied. “I have coaxed the men; I have pushed them; I have sworn at them. I have done everything in my power. Yet they will not produce.”
It was near the end of the day; in a few minutes the night force would come on duty. I turned to a workman who was standing beside one of the red-mouthed furnaces and asked him for a piece of chalk. “How many heats has your shift made today?” I queried. “Six” he replied. I chalked a big “6” on the floor, and then passed along without another word.
When the night shift came in they saw the “6” and asked about it. “The big boss was in here today”, said the day men. “He asked us how many heats we had made, and we told him six. He chalked it down.”
The next morning I passed through the same mill. I saw that the “6” had been rubbed out and a big “7” written instead. The night shift had announced itself. That night I went back. The “7” had been erased, and a “10” swaggered in its place. The day force recognized no superiors. Thus a fine competition was started, and it went on until this mill, formerly the poorest producer, was turning out more than any other mill in the company.
Good luck as you partner with your team and intentionally pursue a higher level of performance!
Wes can be contacted at Wes.Friesen@pgn.com.
Monday, December 6, 2010
With economy improving, IT departments hit the ground running
Posted by Mark Brousseau
High performing information technology (IT) departments at large companies have hit the ground running following the recent economic downturn, recalibrating their efforts to drive more business value from IT, and leaving their less adroit counterparts playing catch-up, according to new research from Accenture.
While many companies slipped into stagnation mode during the downturn, cutting budgets and focusing primarily on maintenance, high-performing organizations viewed IT as a growth engine for their business and the economic conditions as an opportunity to build capability.
Accenture defines high performers in IT as those that achieve excellence in IT execution, IT agility and IT innovation together, balancing the constant and sometimes opposing demands placed on today’s IT function.
High performers in IT not only manage IT like a business, but run IT for the business and with the business. CIOs at these organizations are engaged in their company’s business strategies and are able to truly map out how IT supports those strategies.
“Our survey found that chief information officers (CIOs) of high performance IT organizations are deeply involved in business outcomes and closely attuned to business needs – current and future – across the enterprise,” said Gary Curtis, Accenture’s chief technology strategist. “They are successfully retiring their legacy systems and embracing newer technologies. They are adept at managing the balance between optimizing costs and ensuring that they have the budget, skills, and resources to help fuel business growth.”
The research also found that high performers don’t just do a few things well; they excel across the board when compared to lower performing IT departments. Some examples:
... They have web-enabled 42 percent more of their customer interactions and 93 percent more of their suppliers’ interactions ;
... They are 44 percent more likely to recognize the strategic role IT plays in increasing customer satisfaction;
... They are eight times more likely to measure the benefits realized from IT initiatives;
... They spend 29 percent more annually on developing and implementing new applications rather than on maintaining existing ones; and
... They are twice as likely to view workforce performance as a priority by addressing challenges such as an aging workforce and collaboration, as well as developing technical and soft skills (business knowledge, relationship management)
“High performing IT departments are powerful drivers of value for their organizations – not simply keeping the lights on, but promoting technology initiatives that power innovation and enable the IT organization to function as a business,” said Curtis.
What do you think?
High performing information technology (IT) departments at large companies have hit the ground running following the recent economic downturn, recalibrating their efforts to drive more business value from IT, and leaving their less adroit counterparts playing catch-up, according to new research from Accenture.
While many companies slipped into stagnation mode during the downturn, cutting budgets and focusing primarily on maintenance, high-performing organizations viewed IT as a growth engine for their business and the economic conditions as an opportunity to build capability.
Accenture defines high performers in IT as those that achieve excellence in IT execution, IT agility and IT innovation together, balancing the constant and sometimes opposing demands placed on today’s IT function.
High performers in IT not only manage IT like a business, but run IT for the business and with the business. CIOs at these organizations are engaged in their company’s business strategies and are able to truly map out how IT supports those strategies.
“Our survey found that chief information officers (CIOs) of high performance IT organizations are deeply involved in business outcomes and closely attuned to business needs – current and future – across the enterprise,” said Gary Curtis, Accenture’s chief technology strategist. “They are successfully retiring their legacy systems and embracing newer technologies. They are adept at managing the balance between optimizing costs and ensuring that they have the budget, skills, and resources to help fuel business growth.”
The research also found that high performers don’t just do a few things well; they excel across the board when compared to lower performing IT departments. Some examples:
... They have web-enabled 42 percent more of their customer interactions and 93 percent more of their suppliers’ interactions ;
... They are 44 percent more likely to recognize the strategic role IT plays in increasing customer satisfaction;
... They are eight times more likely to measure the benefits realized from IT initiatives;
... They spend 29 percent more annually on developing and implementing new applications rather than on maintaining existing ones; and
... They are twice as likely to view workforce performance as a priority by addressing challenges such as an aging workforce and collaboration, as well as developing technical and soft skills (business knowledge, relationship management)
“High performing IT departments are powerful drivers of value for their organizations – not simply keeping the lights on, but promoting technology initiatives that power innovation and enable the IT organization to function as a business,” said Curtis.
What do you think?
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
7 Major Projects CIOs Should Consider
Posted by Mark Brousseau
With 2011 predicted to be the year when the IT industry will reach nearly $3.5 trillion in revenue and show long-term growth for the next five years, Gartner analysts say there are seven business and IT issues that warrant the greatest attention and demand the clearest strategies for the future.
“We are increasingly living, playing and working in a digital world where people will have no alternatives but to become ‘more digital’ with the assets they have available,” said Stephen Prentice, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “In 2012, the Internet will be 75 times larger than it was in 2002, and if Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest in the world (after China and India). Device and data proliferation is also a reality that cannot be escaped. Smart devices will rise from 60 billion devices in 2010 to more than 200 billion in 2020.”
“Technology is no longer the preserve of the CIO,” said Ken McGee, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “It has become everyone’s property and everyone’s issue.”
With the IT industry on track to show a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4 percent for the next five years Gartner has identified seven business and IT issues that CIOs should act on during the next three years. “CIOs will need to begin implementing these technologies within three years to meet the six year predictions,” McGee said. The seven issues include:
IT/OT Alignment- Inadequate software management of operational technology (OT) systems will result in a major business failure of a top Global 100 company by 2013.
Executives are realizing there are cost savings and management efficiencies to be gained by integrating the IT and OT groups together. Although efforts to integrate groups are challenging, benefits from streamlined budgets, coordinated planning, consistent technology architectural decisions and maximizing technology purchasing power make for extremely compelling cases for IT and OT group integration.
Business Gets Social -Through 2015, 80 percent of organizations will lack a coherent approach for dealing with information from the collective.
Today, social media is changing the way business is conducted. “Understanding the power of communities, the multiple personas of their members expectations, their aspirations and how to interact with them will become essential skills for business in the 21st century,” said McGee. “However, vast sums of money and enormous amounts of time will be spent during this decade and beyond to discover how IT and business leaders best capitalize on the growing spread, power and influence of social networks.”
Pattern-Based Strategy- Through 2015, pattern-seeking technology will be the fastest-growing intelligence investment among the most successful Global 2000.
A Pattern-Based Strategy provides a framework to proactively seek, model and adapt to leading indicators, often-termed "weak" signals that form patterns in the marketplace. It will allow IT leaders to seek-out patterns amidst the burgeoning information sources and model future possibilities. “We have found that senior business and IT leaders see lack of information shareability as a barrier to growth,” Prentice said.
Cloud Computing- By 2016, all Global 2000 companies will use public cloud services.
Cloud computing represents a shift in the relationship between the providers and consumers of IT-based solutions. It constitutes the basis of a discontinuity that amounts to a new opportunity to shape the relationship between those who use IT services and those who sell them. Gartner said worldwide cloud services revenue (including public and private services) is forecast to reach $148.8 billion in 2014.
Context-Aware Computing- By 2016, one-third of worldwide mobile consumer marketing will be context-awareness-based.
Context-aware computing will foster people to be more digital with the assets they have available. Context-aware computing is taking advantage of location and time and is a new era of augmented reality. More than $150 billion of global telecom spending will shift from services to applications by 2012, and the global market for context-aware services will amount to $215 billion.
“Unlocking this potential will be one of the next major challenges for IT,” said McGee. “For example, we expect 75 percent of new search installations to include a social search element. The world is digital and business leaders can’t ignore it.”
Sustainability- By 2016, sustainability will be the fastest-growing enterprise compliance expense worldwide.
As long as the current science surrounding climate change remains credible, organizations should anticipate that the current focus on energy, water and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will continue, and this will draw attention to other environmental issues, such as resource depletion, species extinction, bio-diversity and environmental justice. There will remain many hard trade-offs between an organization’s financial and operational performance and that of its environmental performance. Information systems will be critical in the role — from governance, risk and compliance, through corporate social responsibility systems, to enabling new and more-sustainable business models.
New Realities of IT: Balancing Cost and Innovation with Risk and Governance- Innovation accomplishments will be among the top-three selection criteria for new CIOs by 2016.
With the recent global recession, innovative thinkers must find new ways to create growth — in revenue, jobs and industries — in this new business climate. Cost and value optimization must remain a top priority, while the search for growth continues.
Regulatory and corporate demands for greater attention to risk have already begun to emerge. Gartner also foresees a new emphasis on business change governance.
Beyond 2020, Gartner analysts forecast that two emerging trends will become $1 billion markets. First, human augmentation, a technology that focuses on creating cognitive and physical improvements as an integral part of the human body is slowly but steadily becoming a reality and enhancing peoples’ lives.
The second trend is wireless power devices. By 2011, there will be more than 1 billion PCs and 5 billion mobile phones in use in the world, and based on the levels of demand Gartner foresees cumulative sales from wireless power products surpassing $1 billion by 2020.
“We are reaching these observations by exploring future IT growth and future adoption projections upon demand,” McGee said. “We are looking at emerging business and societal trends and based upon our findings, we will indicate likely future IT winners and losers. This methodology will not replace any existing methodologies, but simply complement existing models.”
“Looking forward, we expect to see more deployment of existing technologies in new and innovative ways, and fewer and fewer genuinely new technologies emerging in the mainstream,” said Prentice. “That is not to imply that no new developments will occur, but we are now starting to see the early indications of precursor and trigger technologies for the next wave of technology, which is likely to run from about 2025 through 2080.”
What do you think?
With 2011 predicted to be the year when the IT industry will reach nearly $3.5 trillion in revenue and show long-term growth for the next five years, Gartner analysts say there are seven business and IT issues that warrant the greatest attention and demand the clearest strategies for the future.
“We are increasingly living, playing and working in a digital world where people will have no alternatives but to become ‘more digital’ with the assets they have available,” said Stephen Prentice, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “In 2012, the Internet will be 75 times larger than it was in 2002, and if Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest in the world (after China and India). Device and data proliferation is also a reality that cannot be escaped. Smart devices will rise from 60 billion devices in 2010 to more than 200 billion in 2020.”
“Technology is no longer the preserve of the CIO,” said Ken McGee, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “It has become everyone’s property and everyone’s issue.”
With the IT industry on track to show a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4 percent for the next five years Gartner has identified seven business and IT issues that CIOs should act on during the next three years. “CIOs will need to begin implementing these technologies within three years to meet the six year predictions,” McGee said. The seven issues include:
IT/OT Alignment- Inadequate software management of operational technology (OT) systems will result in a major business failure of a top Global 100 company by 2013.
Executives are realizing there are cost savings and management efficiencies to be gained by integrating the IT and OT groups together. Although efforts to integrate groups are challenging, benefits from streamlined budgets, coordinated planning, consistent technology architectural decisions and maximizing technology purchasing power make for extremely compelling cases for IT and OT group integration.
Business Gets Social -Through 2015, 80 percent of organizations will lack a coherent approach for dealing with information from the collective.
Today, social media is changing the way business is conducted. “Understanding the power of communities, the multiple personas of their members expectations, their aspirations and how to interact with them will become essential skills for business in the 21st century,” said McGee. “However, vast sums of money and enormous amounts of time will be spent during this decade and beyond to discover how IT and business leaders best capitalize on the growing spread, power and influence of social networks.”
Pattern-Based Strategy- Through 2015, pattern-seeking technology will be the fastest-growing intelligence investment among the most successful Global 2000.
A Pattern-Based Strategy provides a framework to proactively seek, model and adapt to leading indicators, often-termed "weak" signals that form patterns in the marketplace. It will allow IT leaders to seek-out patterns amidst the burgeoning information sources and model future possibilities. “We have found that senior business and IT leaders see lack of information shareability as a barrier to growth,” Prentice said.
Cloud Computing- By 2016, all Global 2000 companies will use public cloud services.
Cloud computing represents a shift in the relationship between the providers and consumers of IT-based solutions. It constitutes the basis of a discontinuity that amounts to a new opportunity to shape the relationship between those who use IT services and those who sell them. Gartner said worldwide cloud services revenue (including public and private services) is forecast to reach $148.8 billion in 2014.
Context-Aware Computing- By 2016, one-third of worldwide mobile consumer marketing will be context-awareness-based.
Context-aware computing will foster people to be more digital with the assets they have available. Context-aware computing is taking advantage of location and time and is a new era of augmented reality. More than $150 billion of global telecom spending will shift from services to applications by 2012, and the global market for context-aware services will amount to $215 billion.
“Unlocking this potential will be one of the next major challenges for IT,” said McGee. “For example, we expect 75 percent of new search installations to include a social search element. The world is digital and business leaders can’t ignore it.”
Sustainability- By 2016, sustainability will be the fastest-growing enterprise compliance expense worldwide.
As long as the current science surrounding climate change remains credible, organizations should anticipate that the current focus on energy, water and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will continue, and this will draw attention to other environmental issues, such as resource depletion, species extinction, bio-diversity and environmental justice. There will remain many hard trade-offs between an organization’s financial and operational performance and that of its environmental performance. Information systems will be critical in the role — from governance, risk and compliance, through corporate social responsibility systems, to enabling new and more-sustainable business models.
New Realities of IT: Balancing Cost and Innovation with Risk and Governance- Innovation accomplishments will be among the top-three selection criteria for new CIOs by 2016.
With the recent global recession, innovative thinkers must find new ways to create growth — in revenue, jobs and industries — in this new business climate. Cost and value optimization must remain a top priority, while the search for growth continues.
Regulatory and corporate demands for greater attention to risk have already begun to emerge. Gartner also foresees a new emphasis on business change governance.
Beyond 2020, Gartner analysts forecast that two emerging trends will become $1 billion markets. First, human augmentation, a technology that focuses on creating cognitive and physical improvements as an integral part of the human body is slowly but steadily becoming a reality and enhancing peoples’ lives.
The second trend is wireless power devices. By 2011, there will be more than 1 billion PCs and 5 billion mobile phones in use in the world, and based on the levels of demand Gartner foresees cumulative sales from wireless power products surpassing $1 billion by 2020.
“We are reaching these observations by exploring future IT growth and future adoption projections upon demand,” McGee said. “We are looking at emerging business and societal trends and based upon our findings, we will indicate likely future IT winners and losers. This methodology will not replace any existing methodologies, but simply complement existing models.”
“Looking forward, we expect to see more deployment of existing technologies in new and innovative ways, and fewer and fewer genuinely new technologies emerging in the mainstream,” said Prentice. “That is not to imply that no new developments will occur, but we are now starting to see the early indications of precursor and trigger technologies for the next wave of technology, which is likely to run from about 2025 through 2080.”
What do you think?
Monday, November 15, 2010
AFP Conference Attendees Ready to Buy
Posted by Mark Brousseau
After years of being relegated to the sidelines as a result of the economic downturn, attendees at this week's AFP Annual Conference at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas, appeared to be back in the buying game, reports Mario Villarreal (mvillarreal@usdataworks.com), president and COO of Houston-based US Dataworks, Inc. (www.usdataworks.com). As evidence, Villarreal pointed to the advertised 30 percent bump in attendance, better booth traffic, and the more substantive conversations with prospects compared to last year.
"After several years of sitting through vendor presentations and strategizing internally about enterprise payments, many of the organizations at AFP appeared ready to buy," Villarreal said. "Based on the conversations we had at AFP, I think we will see a significant number of enterprise payments deals close next year." Villarreal said banks, in particular, appeared interested in enterprise payments.
Two key factors are driving the demand for enterprise payments, Villarreal said. First, operations have reached the breaking point in terms of effectively managing their existing payment silos. By consolidating all of their paper-based and electronic payment channels onto a single platform, organizations can reduce cost, eliminate redundant systems and processes, improve availability, gain better visibility into their payments, and apply consistent controls across their payment streams.
Second, organizations are more confident that they will have the budget necessary next year to kick-off an enterprise payments initiative. Furthermore, banks may be looking to make internal investments that deliver a reasonable rate of return rather than parking their cash and earning a measly 25 basis points, Villarreal said. "By no means are operations flush with cash, but IT budget dollars are loosening up for projects with a clear ROI, and enterprise payments fit that bill," he said.
What do you think?
After years of being relegated to the sidelines as a result of the economic downturn, attendees at this week's AFP Annual Conference at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas, appeared to be back in the buying game, reports Mario Villarreal (mvillarreal@usdataworks.com), president and COO of Houston-based US Dataworks, Inc. (www.usdataworks.com). As evidence, Villarreal pointed to the advertised 30 percent bump in attendance, better booth traffic, and the more substantive conversations with prospects compared to last year.
"After several years of sitting through vendor presentations and strategizing internally about enterprise payments, many of the organizations at AFP appeared ready to buy," Villarreal said. "Based on the conversations we had at AFP, I think we will see a significant number of enterprise payments deals close next year." Villarreal said banks, in particular, appeared interested in enterprise payments.
Two key factors are driving the demand for enterprise payments, Villarreal said. First, operations have reached the breaking point in terms of effectively managing their existing payment silos. By consolidating all of their paper-based and electronic payment channels onto a single platform, organizations can reduce cost, eliminate redundant systems and processes, improve availability, gain better visibility into their payments, and apply consistent controls across their payment streams.
Second, organizations are more confident that they will have the budget necessary next year to kick-off an enterprise payments initiative. Furthermore, banks may be looking to make internal investments that deliver a reasonable rate of return rather than parking their cash and earning a measly 25 basis points, Villarreal said. "By no means are operations flush with cash, but IT budget dollars are loosening up for projects with a clear ROI, and enterprise payments fit that bill," he said.
What do you think?
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Consumer Bill Payers Want Incentives To Go Electronic
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Consumers pay a lot of bills, and they pay those bills in myriad combinations of channels and methods. Consumers’ bill pay behavior isn’t a trivial matter—changes in behavior can result in millions of dollars of additional or lost revenue, or millions of dollars in cost savings.
Despite the increasing popularity of the Internet and the emergence of the mobile channel as a way to transact and interact, checks sent through the mail remain the most prevalent method for paying bills in the United States.
Aite Group says the number of bill payments made through the mail will fall just short of 5 billion for 2010, accounting for about one-third of all payments made, whereas payments made at a biller site—including recurring and mobile payments—will account for 23% of all bills paid in 2010.
Looking to the future, however, consumers’ bill pay behavior is very likely to change, Aite Group predicts. Roughly four in 10 consumers say they would change how they pay their bills if they received rewards for paying with a debit or credit card, or received a cash incentive for changing their behavior, the research and advisory firm reports. In addition, the rapid adoption of smartphones will help drive bill pay behavior change over the next three years.
“There’s an emerging segment of consumers—which we call Smartphonatics—that will lead to an increase in the use of the online and mobile channels for paying bills,” says Ron Shevlin, senior analyst with Aite Group. “These young and affluent consumers are chomping at the bit to use their smartphones, and are very likely to change how they pay bills if it becomes easier to do so via mobile. The growth of biller-direct over consolidator, coupled with the projected growth in mobile payments, means an opportunity for bill pay solutions providers to create an industry-leading mobile platform.”
What are you seeing?
Consumers pay a lot of bills, and they pay those bills in myriad combinations of channels and methods. Consumers’ bill pay behavior isn’t a trivial matter—changes in behavior can result in millions of dollars of additional or lost revenue, or millions of dollars in cost savings.
Despite the increasing popularity of the Internet and the emergence of the mobile channel as a way to transact and interact, checks sent through the mail remain the most prevalent method for paying bills in the United States.
Aite Group says the number of bill payments made through the mail will fall just short of 5 billion for 2010, accounting for about one-third of all payments made, whereas payments made at a biller site—including recurring and mobile payments—will account for 23% of all bills paid in 2010.
Looking to the future, however, consumers’ bill pay behavior is very likely to change, Aite Group predicts. Roughly four in 10 consumers say they would change how they pay their bills if they received rewards for paying with a debit or credit card, or received a cash incentive for changing their behavior, the research and advisory firm reports. In addition, the rapid adoption of smartphones will help drive bill pay behavior change over the next three years.
“There’s an emerging segment of consumers—which we call Smartphonatics—that will lead to an increase in the use of the online and mobile channels for paying bills,” says Ron Shevlin, senior analyst with Aite Group. “These young and affluent consumers are chomping at the bit to use their smartphones, and are very likely to change how they pay bills if it becomes easier to do so via mobile. The growth of biller-direct over consolidator, coupled with the projected growth in mobile payments, means an opportunity for bill pay solutions providers to create an industry-leading mobile platform.”
What are you seeing?
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Social Nation Building Done Right
Posted by Mark Brousseau
When social media first came on the scene, companies couldn't wait to get on board with the new trend, because they saw it as a way to expand their brands and grow their businesses—and, of course, they had high hopes for return on investment. Now, fast-forward several years. Today, many of these same companies have hired employees devoted to using social technologies but are now faced with answering the all-important question, Now what?
"There's no denying that social networking has worked for some companies and been a flat-out flop for others," asserts Barry Libert, author of the new book Social Nation: How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Attract Customers, Motivate Employees, and Grow Your Business. "Most companies are confused about what social networking really is and about how to successfully leverage it.
"The good news," he continues, "is that these companies don't have to give up their goal of building a successful 'Social Nation,' as I call it. They simply have to change the way they think about it and develop effective strategies. Primarily, they have to learn it's not about technology, as is commonly assumed...it's about community."
Libert knows what he's talking about. After all, he's the chairman and CEO of Mzinga, a company that provides social software to businesses. Quite literally, it's his job to be social media savvy. And he's adamant that before you start building your own Social Nation, you need to have a well-researched game plan. In fact, it's that knowledge, gathered through years of Mzinga's real-world experience, that prompted him to write Social Nation, a sort of social networking best practices manual.
"There's no denying that people know how to use tools like Facebook and Twitter—they just do it to no avail," Libert explains. "What they should be doing is focusing their attention on their customers, partners, and employees. Listening, acknowledging, connecting, and rewarding these people—and implementing what they have to say. I can't stress enough that social networking isn't about accumulating followers for the sake of having them—it's about building a community that brings real value and true ROI to your company."
It almost sounds too simple—but when faced with skepticism, Libert points out that a focus on building community spelled success for his company's clients long before the advent of Facebook. To date, Mzinga has worked with hundreds of companies to manage a total of 2.5 billion interactions a month through online communities.
Ready to rethink your own company's social networking strategy and start seeing some real value? Then throw out what you thought you knew about social media and read on to learn what really works in the land of social networking, as explained in Social Nation:
Build your own community. "Social Nation" is a catchy phrase, sure—but what does it really mean? Well, social is the construct of wanting to belong with another, and nation is being part of something that has purpose. Taking that into account, then, your company's social networking goal should be to bring like-minded people together in order to achieve a common purpose.
"It's all about connecting people who need to be connected, allowing them to become a part of your company experience," says Libert. "I've said it before and I'll say it again: Technology is important, but it will never be a substitute for community. If you want to see growth, you've got to develop a social network that helps people grow, engages their minds, satisfies their unmet needs, and connects them to one another."
Don't broadcast but share. Talking to someone whose conversation is constantly "me-me-me" isn't anyone's idea of a good time...and that principle also holds true in the world of social networking. It doesn't matter how frequently you update your company's status or blog about its achievements if you never deliver information that your followers actually want and need to hear.
"Always remember to create and disseminate quality content that helps people make good decisions, improves businesses, and enhances lives," advises Libert. "They want to read about topics that are actionable and applicable—so we always make sure our clients at Mzinga are providing their constituents with information, tools, and tips on subjects that are of interest to them."
Don't be a guest in someone else's home. Think about the differences between a house and a home. A house is only a structure—but a home is a place where you feel like you belong. That, Libert insists, is the difference between joining random social media sites for the sake of doing it and embracing and building a truly social business.
Realize that might does not make right. Just as your company should avoid disseminating "me-me-me" information via social networking, it should also avoid dominating the conversation. And make no mistake—a symbiotic two-way conversation is exactly what's going on here. A successful Social Nation always lets its community be part of telling the story, from start to finish. Look at it this way: Employees, customers, and partners are essentially volunteering their time and energy to serve as developers, sounding boards, and advertisements for your company. They want to belong—so let them, and listen to them.
"Recently, a company came to me and asked what they needed to do to become the leader in their industry," Libert recounts. "The first thing they had to do, I told them, was to stop trying to 'lead' everything! Instead, make it your goal to be the definitive 'community.' This will draw people in, and it will turn them into raving fans."
Social Nation tells the stories of companies that have embraced this shift to more open, social business models in substantive ways, forging new paths to workplace collaboration, product development, customer relationship management, brand loyalty, innovation, and profitability.
"What businesses should be doing is focusing their attention not on social media itself, but on how they can use it as a channel in every facet of their business to establish the genuine connections that are increasingly becoming the new path to profitability," says Libert. "As a business leader today, your job is to make sure these things happen, and I believe Social Nation can help you get there."
What do you think?
When social media first came on the scene, companies couldn't wait to get on board with the new trend, because they saw it as a way to expand their brands and grow their businesses—and, of course, they had high hopes for return on investment. Now, fast-forward several years. Today, many of these same companies have hired employees devoted to using social technologies but are now faced with answering the all-important question, Now what?
"There's no denying that social networking has worked for some companies and been a flat-out flop for others," asserts Barry Libert, author of the new book Social Nation: How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Attract Customers, Motivate Employees, and Grow Your Business. "Most companies are confused about what social networking really is and about how to successfully leverage it.
"The good news," he continues, "is that these companies don't have to give up their goal of building a successful 'Social Nation,' as I call it. They simply have to change the way they think about it and develop effective strategies. Primarily, they have to learn it's not about technology, as is commonly assumed...it's about community."
Libert knows what he's talking about. After all, he's the chairman and CEO of Mzinga, a company that provides social software to businesses. Quite literally, it's his job to be social media savvy. And he's adamant that before you start building your own Social Nation, you need to have a well-researched game plan. In fact, it's that knowledge, gathered through years of Mzinga's real-world experience, that prompted him to write Social Nation, a sort of social networking best practices manual.
"There's no denying that people know how to use tools like Facebook and Twitter—they just do it to no avail," Libert explains. "What they should be doing is focusing their attention on their customers, partners, and employees. Listening, acknowledging, connecting, and rewarding these people—and implementing what they have to say. I can't stress enough that social networking isn't about accumulating followers for the sake of having them—it's about building a community that brings real value and true ROI to your company."
It almost sounds too simple—but when faced with skepticism, Libert points out that a focus on building community spelled success for his company's clients long before the advent of Facebook. To date, Mzinga has worked with hundreds of companies to manage a total of 2.5 billion interactions a month through online communities.
Ready to rethink your own company's social networking strategy and start seeing some real value? Then throw out what you thought you knew about social media and read on to learn what really works in the land of social networking, as explained in Social Nation:
Build your own community. "Social Nation" is a catchy phrase, sure—but what does it really mean? Well, social is the construct of wanting to belong with another, and nation is being part of something that has purpose. Taking that into account, then, your company's social networking goal should be to bring like-minded people together in order to achieve a common purpose.
"It's all about connecting people who need to be connected, allowing them to become a part of your company experience," says Libert. "I've said it before and I'll say it again: Technology is important, but it will never be a substitute for community. If you want to see growth, you've got to develop a social network that helps people grow, engages their minds, satisfies their unmet needs, and connects them to one another."
Don't broadcast but share. Talking to someone whose conversation is constantly "me-me-me" isn't anyone's idea of a good time...and that principle also holds true in the world of social networking. It doesn't matter how frequently you update your company's status or blog about its achievements if you never deliver information that your followers actually want and need to hear.
"Always remember to create and disseminate quality content that helps people make good decisions, improves businesses, and enhances lives," advises Libert. "They want to read about topics that are actionable and applicable—so we always make sure our clients at Mzinga are providing their constituents with information, tools, and tips on subjects that are of interest to them."
Don't be a guest in someone else's home. Think about the differences between a house and a home. A house is only a structure—but a home is a place where you feel like you belong. That, Libert insists, is the difference between joining random social media sites for the sake of doing it and embracing and building a truly social business.
Realize that might does not make right. Just as your company should avoid disseminating "me-me-me" information via social networking, it should also avoid dominating the conversation. And make no mistake—a symbiotic two-way conversation is exactly what's going on here. A successful Social Nation always lets its community be part of telling the story, from start to finish. Look at it this way: Employees, customers, and partners are essentially volunteering their time and energy to serve as developers, sounding boards, and advertisements for your company. They want to belong—so let them, and listen to them.
"Recently, a company came to me and asked what they needed to do to become the leader in their industry," Libert recounts. "The first thing they had to do, I told them, was to stop trying to 'lead' everything! Instead, make it your goal to be the definitive 'community.' This will draw people in, and it will turn them into raving fans."
Social Nation tells the stories of companies that have embraced this shift to more open, social business models in substantive ways, forging new paths to workplace collaboration, product development, customer relationship management, brand loyalty, innovation, and profitability.
"What businesses should be doing is focusing their attention not on social media itself, but on how they can use it as a channel in every facet of their business to establish the genuine connections that are increasingly becoming the new path to profitability," says Libert. "As a business leader today, your job is to make sure these things happen, and I believe Social Nation can help you get there."
What do you think?
Friday, October 22, 2010
Utilities grow weary of siloed payments solutions
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Rising payment processing costs may be catching up to utilities, if this week’s 13th Annual Utility Payment Conference hosted by Dominion at the Hilton Hotel in Richmond, VA, is any indication.
Historically, utility payments were among the easiest and cheapest to process, thanks in large part to the high number of full-pay transactions that included a remittance document with an OCR scan line. In fact, TAWPI’s 2009 Payments Benchmarking Survey showed that the average cost per paper-based remittance payment remained unchanged at $0.15 per item between 2005 and 2009. But the emergence of new payment channels, such as the Web and credit card, has disproportionately “taken out” so-called “clean” transactions, leaving utilities with more complex paper-based remittances. At the same time, utilities must cost-effectively manage this growing number of payment streams.
Not surprisingly, utilities in attendance at this week’s payments conference were keen on finding solutions that would consolidate both paper-based and electronic payment streams onto a single platform. Mario Villarreal, president and COO of US Dataworks, Inc. – an exhibitor at the event – can’t remember a time when utilities have shown as much interest in enterprise payments solutions.
This follows a trend I observed this summer at the Federation of Tax Administrators conference.
“The utility market is clearly thirsting for enterprise payments solutions that provide them with greater visibility, efficiency and consistency in their revenue management,” Villarreal explained.
For utilities, centralized processing is one of the key advantages of an enterprise payments approach. Villarreal says centralized payments processing is especially appealing to utilities that are expanding their geographic footprint; one utility he spoke with at the conference operates in 33 states. With an enterprise approach, utilities gain better visibility into their payments, regardless of their footprint.
Utilities see similar benefits to centralizing the archival of their payments images and data, he adds.
But vendors may be slow in getting the message, Villarreal added. “Most of the exhibitors at the conference are still taking a fragmented approach to automated utility payment processing.” The vast majority of the 38 exhibitors at the Payment Utility Conference strictly offer siloed solutions for payments applications such as remittance, cashiering, remote deposit capture or ACH processing.
In Villarreal’s eyes, that won’t solve the challenge utilities face in their payments operations.
“Until you consolidate systems and apply standard processes and controls across payment channels, you will always be saddled with inefficient and costly payments operations,” Villarreal concluded.
What do you think?
Rising payment processing costs may be catching up to utilities, if this week’s 13th Annual Utility Payment Conference hosted by Dominion at the Hilton Hotel in Richmond, VA, is any indication.
Historically, utility payments were among the easiest and cheapest to process, thanks in large part to the high number of full-pay transactions that included a remittance document with an OCR scan line. In fact, TAWPI’s 2009 Payments Benchmarking Survey showed that the average cost per paper-based remittance payment remained unchanged at $0.15 per item between 2005 and 2009. But the emergence of new payment channels, such as the Web and credit card, has disproportionately “taken out” so-called “clean” transactions, leaving utilities with more complex paper-based remittances. At the same time, utilities must cost-effectively manage this growing number of payment streams.
Not surprisingly, utilities in attendance at this week’s payments conference were keen on finding solutions that would consolidate both paper-based and electronic payment streams onto a single platform. Mario Villarreal, president and COO of US Dataworks, Inc. – an exhibitor at the event – can’t remember a time when utilities have shown as much interest in enterprise payments solutions.
This follows a trend I observed this summer at the Federation of Tax Administrators conference.
“The utility market is clearly thirsting for enterprise payments solutions that provide them with greater visibility, efficiency and consistency in their revenue management,” Villarreal explained.
For utilities, centralized processing is one of the key advantages of an enterprise payments approach. Villarreal says centralized payments processing is especially appealing to utilities that are expanding their geographic footprint; one utility he spoke with at the conference operates in 33 states. With an enterprise approach, utilities gain better visibility into their payments, regardless of their footprint.
Utilities see similar benefits to centralizing the archival of their payments images and data, he adds.
But vendors may be slow in getting the message, Villarreal added. “Most of the exhibitors at the conference are still taking a fragmented approach to automated utility payment processing.” The vast majority of the 38 exhibitors at the Payment Utility Conference strictly offer siloed solutions for payments applications such as remittance, cashiering, remote deposit capture or ACH processing.
In Villarreal’s eyes, that won’t solve the challenge utilities face in their payments operations.
“Until you consolidate systems and apply standard processes and controls across payment channels, you will always be saddled with inefficient and costly payments operations,” Villarreal concluded.
What do you think?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
6 tips for messages that resonate
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Today we are overwhelmed with messages. Some are just 140 characters long. Others are much longer, but they are constantly bombarding us—trying to lure us to acquire and consume information (then repeat the process over and over). Technology—social media specifically—allows for constant communication, but easy communication doesn't necessarily translate to messages that are received, understood, and capable of driving action.
At a time when people are tweeting, blogging, emailing, and more 24/7, the best way to genuinely connect and create change, says author and CEO Nancy Duarte, is via truly human, in-person presentations. She stresses that everyone in every company should know how to present and communicate that company's messages with clarity and passion.
"Great presentations are like magic," says Duarte, CEO of Duarte Design, author of the award-winning book Slide:ology, and author of the new book Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences.
"It takes a lot of work to breathe life into an idea. Spending energy to understand the audience and carefully crafting a message that resonates with them means committing time and discipline to the process. Think about it this way: You likely spend countless hours collaborating and innovating to put forth really good ideas. You should spend just as much energy ensuring they are delivered in a way that is impactful. The payoff is that learning how to present in a captivating way—be it at a formal event or to a client across the conference room table—can be your competitive edge in a business environment where too many companies are confusing communication with noise."
So how can you make sure you present information in a way that truly resonates?
"If people can easily recall, repeat, and transfer your message, you did a great job conveying it," says Duarte. "To achieve this, you should have a handful of succinct, clear, and repeatable sound bites planted in your presentation that people can effortlessly remember. A thoroughly considered sound bite can create a Something They'll Always Remember (S.T.A.R.) moment—not only for the people present in the audience but also for the ones who will encounter your presentation through broadcast or social media channels."
To help you get started creating presentations that really stick with your audiences, here are a few tips on how you can incorporate repeatable sound bites:
Create crisp messages. Picture each person you speak to as a little radio tower empowered to repeat your key concepts over and over. "Some of the most innocent-looking people have fifty thousand followers in their social networks," says Duarte. "When one sound bite is sent to their followers, it can get re-sent hundreds of thousands of times."
Craft a rally cry. Your rally cry will be a small, repeatable phrase that can become the slogan and rallying cry of the masses trying to promote your idea. President Obama's campaign slogan, "Yes We Can," originated from a speech during the primary elections.
Coordinate key phrases with the same language in your press materials. For presentations where the press is present, be sure to repeat critical messages verbatim from your press materials. "Doing so ensures that the press will pick up the right sound bites," explains Duarte. "The same is true for any camera crews who might be filming your presentation. Make sure you have at least a fifteen- to thirty-second message that is so salient it will be obvious to reporters that it should be featured in the broadcasts."
Use catchy words. Take time to carefully craft a few messages with catchy words. "For example, Neil Armstrong used the six hours and forty minutes between his moon landing and first step to craft his historic statement," says Duarte. "Phrases that have historical significance or become headlines don't just magically appear in the moment. They are mindfully planned."
Make them remember. Once you've crafted the message, there are three ways to ensure the audience remembers it: First, repeating the phrase more than once. Second, punctuating it with a pause that gives the audience time to write down exactly what you said. And finally, projecting the words on a slide so they receive the message visually as well as aurally.
Imitate a famous phrase. "Everyone knows the Golden Rule," says Duarte. "'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' Well, an imitation of that famous phrase might be 'Never give a presentation you wouldn't want to sit through yourself.'"
"The future isn't just a place you'll go," says Duarte. "It's a place you will invent. Your ability to shape your future depends on how well you communicate where you want to be when you get there. When ideas are communicated effectively, people follow and change. Words that are carefully framed and spoken are the most powerful means of communication there is."
What do you think?
Today we are overwhelmed with messages. Some are just 140 characters long. Others are much longer, but they are constantly bombarding us—trying to lure us to acquire and consume information (then repeat the process over and over). Technology—social media specifically—allows for constant communication, but easy communication doesn't necessarily translate to messages that are received, understood, and capable of driving action.
At a time when people are tweeting, blogging, emailing, and more 24/7, the best way to genuinely connect and create change, says author and CEO Nancy Duarte, is via truly human, in-person presentations. She stresses that everyone in every company should know how to present and communicate that company's messages with clarity and passion.
"Great presentations are like magic," says Duarte, CEO of Duarte Design, author of the award-winning book Slide:ology, and author of the new book Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences.
"It takes a lot of work to breathe life into an idea. Spending energy to understand the audience and carefully crafting a message that resonates with them means committing time and discipline to the process. Think about it this way: You likely spend countless hours collaborating and innovating to put forth really good ideas. You should spend just as much energy ensuring they are delivered in a way that is impactful. The payoff is that learning how to present in a captivating way—be it at a formal event or to a client across the conference room table—can be your competitive edge in a business environment where too many companies are confusing communication with noise."
So how can you make sure you present information in a way that truly resonates?
"If people can easily recall, repeat, and transfer your message, you did a great job conveying it," says Duarte. "To achieve this, you should have a handful of succinct, clear, and repeatable sound bites planted in your presentation that people can effortlessly remember. A thoroughly considered sound bite can create a Something They'll Always Remember (S.T.A.R.) moment—not only for the people present in the audience but also for the ones who will encounter your presentation through broadcast or social media channels."
To help you get started creating presentations that really stick with your audiences, here are a few tips on how you can incorporate repeatable sound bites:
Create crisp messages. Picture each person you speak to as a little radio tower empowered to repeat your key concepts over and over. "Some of the most innocent-looking people have fifty thousand followers in their social networks," says Duarte. "When one sound bite is sent to their followers, it can get re-sent hundreds of thousands of times."
Craft a rally cry. Your rally cry will be a small, repeatable phrase that can become the slogan and rallying cry of the masses trying to promote your idea. President Obama's campaign slogan, "Yes We Can," originated from a speech during the primary elections.
Coordinate key phrases with the same language in your press materials. For presentations where the press is present, be sure to repeat critical messages verbatim from your press materials. "Doing so ensures that the press will pick up the right sound bites," explains Duarte. "The same is true for any camera crews who might be filming your presentation. Make sure you have at least a fifteen- to thirty-second message that is so salient it will be obvious to reporters that it should be featured in the broadcasts."
Use catchy words. Take time to carefully craft a few messages with catchy words. "For example, Neil Armstrong used the six hours and forty minutes between his moon landing and first step to craft his historic statement," says Duarte. "Phrases that have historical significance or become headlines don't just magically appear in the moment. They are mindfully planned."
Make them remember. Once you've crafted the message, there are three ways to ensure the audience remembers it: First, repeating the phrase more than once. Second, punctuating it with a pause that gives the audience time to write down exactly what you said. And finally, projecting the words on a slide so they receive the message visually as well as aurally.
Imitate a famous phrase. "Everyone knows the Golden Rule," says Duarte. "'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' Well, an imitation of that famous phrase might be 'Never give a presentation you wouldn't want to sit through yourself.'"
"The future isn't just a place you'll go," says Duarte. "It's a place you will invent. Your ability to shape your future depends on how well you communicate where you want to be when you get there. When ideas are communicated effectively, people follow and change. Words that are carefully framed and spoken are the most powerful means of communication there is."
What do you think?
Book says to get ready for the next boom (really!)
Posted by Mark Brousseau
A bumper sticker popular in West Texas during the oil bust of the early 1980s went something like this, “Please God, just give me one more boom—I promise not to blow it this time.”
Today, millions of people around the world may be having similar thoughts.
In his book to be published in November, Jack W. Plunkett, a widely followed analyst of global trends, writes that massive changes in America and around the world will bring on a sustained period of economic growth. In The Next Boom, he argues that we are on the verge of developments that will boost job creation, investment and international trade over what he calls the “near future,” from 2013-2025.
“The next boom is already rolling down the tracks in the emerging world,” Plunkett says. “America will get on board shortly.”
The book is subtitled, “What you absolutely, positively have to know between now and 2025,” because Plunkett believes that managers, investors, entrepreneurs and leaders need to understand the changes that will soon occur in order to perform effectively. He presents a panorama of developments in areas including energy, healthcare, education, demographics, global trade, technologies and the rapidly-growing global middle class—showing how trends in America and around the world have tremendous synergy that will lead to a surge in business.
Plunkett, who describes himself as a “pragmatic optimist,” explains that “the coming boom will be supported by three building blocks. First, consumers in America are building savings and becoming financially prudent, while population growth is expanding markets for businesses. Next, global trade is about to enter an evolved, vastly higher level while the middle classes in emerging nations are soaring. Third, advanced technologies will boost the global economy in an unprecedented manner that will make the last technology boom seem tame.”
What do you think?
A bumper sticker popular in West Texas during the oil bust of the early 1980s went something like this, “Please God, just give me one more boom—I promise not to blow it this time.”
Today, millions of people around the world may be having similar thoughts.
In his book to be published in November, Jack W. Plunkett, a widely followed analyst of global trends, writes that massive changes in America and around the world will bring on a sustained period of economic growth. In The Next Boom, he argues that we are on the verge of developments that will boost job creation, investment and international trade over what he calls the “near future,” from 2013-2025.
“The next boom is already rolling down the tracks in the emerging world,” Plunkett says. “America will get on board shortly.”
The book is subtitled, “What you absolutely, positively have to know between now and 2025,” because Plunkett believes that managers, investors, entrepreneurs and leaders need to understand the changes that will soon occur in order to perform effectively. He presents a panorama of developments in areas including energy, healthcare, education, demographics, global trade, technologies and the rapidly-growing global middle class—showing how trends in America and around the world have tremendous synergy that will lead to a surge in business.
Plunkett, who describes himself as a “pragmatic optimist,” explains that “the coming boom will be supported by three building blocks. First, consumers in America are building savings and becoming financially prudent, while population growth is expanding markets for businesses. Next, global trade is about to enter an evolved, vastly higher level while the middle classes in emerging nations are soaring. Third, advanced technologies will boost the global economy in an unprecedented manner that will make the last technology boom seem tame.”
What do you think?
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Why Can't Tellers be Sellers?
By Vijay Balakrishnan, president of StratEx, LLC (vijay.balakrishnan90@gmail.com)
Stepping into a debate that is as old as retail banking is perhaps unwise. There are passionate adherents ranged on both sides of the question. To some, the issue is not whether, but should tellers be sellers?
The question brings the raison d'etre of the retail branch network into sharp relief. Are branches retail storefronts with the primary mission to enhance customer relationships, or are they collection points for myriad transactions processed by centralized back office operations centers? Is the driving imperative one of customer intimacy, or does operational efficiency rule the roost?
A tilt towards operational efficiency has traditionally driven retail banking, with occasional overtures to the selling side of the equation. These overtures, however, tend to be fleeting, and with few exceptions, have not survived beyond some concerted marketing and employee incentive programs.
To understand why the push towards serving and selling the customer has not been sustainable, consider a few points. Making check deposits is by far the main reason customers visit a branch. When they do visit, the teller is the person they most often interact with. Regardless of all the training and incentives that may have been put in place, consider what tellers actually do. They are heads down punching numbers into keyboards (try counting the number of teller keystrokes the next time you're in a branch). They have barely enough time to complete the data entry and squeeze out a quick thank you before the next customer is at their window. Imagine a Neimann Marcus salesperson wordlessly packing what you've picked out and intently ensuring that the bow on the package is just right! Yes, the analogy is not quite right- but you get the picture.
So despite many a marketing push, it is the fundamental transaction tether that yanks the teller back into the role of a frontline operations clerk- the first cog in the vast infrastructure that we put in place to process paper checks, featuring planes, trains, automobiles and giant "paper factories".
There is an alternative, courtesy the legislative cover of Check 21 and advances in imaging and recognition technology. Teller Capture allows the teller to drop the entire deposit into a small foot print scanner and interact heads up with the customer, while an imaging application reads all the necessary information, ensures the transaction is balanced, and prints out a receipt when done. Teller Capture eliminates teller induced data entry errors, and also catches math errors up front. This "ready-to-post" transaction at the very beginning of the deposit stream results in major efficiency savings further down the value chain. It is as close to straight-through-processing as one can get in the check world.
"Not so fast," say some. "You want to make my tellers into check operators?" The reality is that the opposite is true. There is now evidence of major savings in teller time per deposit, including data from a Top 5 U.S. bank of having reduced keystrokes from 75 to 5!
"What about the cost of a scanner and software at every station?" challenge others. "It is really difficult to integrate these capture applications with teller systems." The cost per node for both hardware and software is steadily declining, making it well worth the while to examine the return on investment. The hard numbers on transportation savings, back office labor elimination, and funds availability make it interesting- leave alone the soft benefits in customer service and added sales. Capture systems are also increasingly being integrated into teller systems, both by teller vendors that have acquired check-capture technology, and pure play check imaging vendors that have certified their applications with leading teller vendors.
Coming back to the tellers-to-sellers paradigm, what do you do with the saved time? Do you use it to push even more transactions through? Do you have tellers refer customers to other branch personnel based on prompts from an integrated CRM system? Or do you have tellers take on more of a sales and service role themselves? Those are decisions that will be driven by your overarching strategic intent. Do you want tellers to be sellers in the first place? As you ponder that question, you may want to look at teller capture as an opportunity to cut the transaction tether that keeps pulling you back, yo-yo-like, to the paper factory of another era.
What do you think?
Stepping into a debate that is as old as retail banking is perhaps unwise. There are passionate adherents ranged on both sides of the question. To some, the issue is not whether, but should tellers be sellers?
The question brings the raison d'etre of the retail branch network into sharp relief. Are branches retail storefronts with the primary mission to enhance customer relationships, or are they collection points for myriad transactions processed by centralized back office operations centers? Is the driving imperative one of customer intimacy, or does operational efficiency rule the roost?
A tilt towards operational efficiency has traditionally driven retail banking, with occasional overtures to the selling side of the equation. These overtures, however, tend to be fleeting, and with few exceptions, have not survived beyond some concerted marketing and employee incentive programs.
To understand why the push towards serving and selling the customer has not been sustainable, consider a few points. Making check deposits is by far the main reason customers visit a branch. When they do visit, the teller is the person they most often interact with. Regardless of all the training and incentives that may have been put in place, consider what tellers actually do. They are heads down punching numbers into keyboards (try counting the number of teller keystrokes the next time you're in a branch). They have barely enough time to complete the data entry and squeeze out a quick thank you before the next customer is at their window. Imagine a Neimann Marcus salesperson wordlessly packing what you've picked out and intently ensuring that the bow on the package is just right! Yes, the analogy is not quite right- but you get the picture.
So despite many a marketing push, it is the fundamental transaction tether that yanks the teller back into the role of a frontline operations clerk- the first cog in the vast infrastructure that we put in place to process paper checks, featuring planes, trains, automobiles and giant "paper factories".
There is an alternative, courtesy the legislative cover of Check 21 and advances in imaging and recognition technology. Teller Capture allows the teller to drop the entire deposit into a small foot print scanner and interact heads up with the customer, while an imaging application reads all the necessary information, ensures the transaction is balanced, and prints out a receipt when done. Teller Capture eliminates teller induced data entry errors, and also catches math errors up front. This "ready-to-post" transaction at the very beginning of the deposit stream results in major efficiency savings further down the value chain. It is as close to straight-through-processing as one can get in the check world.
"Not so fast," say some. "You want to make my tellers into check operators?" The reality is that the opposite is true. There is now evidence of major savings in teller time per deposit, including data from a Top 5 U.S. bank of having reduced keystrokes from 75 to 5!
"What about the cost of a scanner and software at every station?" challenge others. "It is really difficult to integrate these capture applications with teller systems." The cost per node for both hardware and software is steadily declining, making it well worth the while to examine the return on investment. The hard numbers on transportation savings, back office labor elimination, and funds availability make it interesting- leave alone the soft benefits in customer service and added sales. Capture systems are also increasingly being integrated into teller systems, both by teller vendors that have acquired check-capture technology, and pure play check imaging vendors that have certified their applications with leading teller vendors.
Coming back to the tellers-to-sellers paradigm, what do you do with the saved time? Do you use it to push even more transactions through? Do you have tellers refer customers to other branch personnel based on prompts from an integrated CRM system? Or do you have tellers take on more of a sales and service role themselves? Those are decisions that will be driven by your overarching strategic intent. Do you want tellers to be sellers in the first place? As you ponder that question, you may want to look at teller capture as an opportunity to cut the transaction tether that keeps pulling you back, yo-yo-like, to the paper factory of another era.
What do you think?
(Fr)agile Software Development
By Vijay Balakrishnan, president of StratEx, LLC (vijay.balakrishnan90@gmail.com)
Much of our world is made possible by software. There are myriad software systems that manage and move our money, keep track of our health histories, light our homes and offices, and indeed even enable you to read this post. While the sheer scale of accomplishment from zeros and ones flitting about at the speed of light is astounding, the manner in which some of these systems are developed, tested, and delivered raises a few questions.
Over the falls in a barrel. The early years of evolution in software development owed much to needs of the defense and aerospace industries. These were highly mission-critical systems that had to work correctly almost ten times out of ten. A linear process that involved detailed specifications, technical designs, strict coding discipline, reviews, and rigorous testing ensured the delivery of many high performance systems.
A version of this made its way into the commercial marketplace under the broad "waterfall process" moniker. The series of hand-offs, from product management, to architecture, design, development and testing, with intermediate review cycles, hearkened a series of waterfalls as in a cataract. While the process worked well for the most part, it lacked speed. The many steps limited organizations to one or two releases to the marketplace a year. It was difficult to nimbly respond to competitive and regulatory changes. If changes were not included early enough in the cycle, it was tantamount to missing an exit on a tollway, and waiting for the next one.
Sprints around the racetrack. In the 1970's, the automotive industry introduced the concept of "simultaneous engineering", where design engineers, manufacturing engineers, and quality control worked together in teams. As opposed to the linear, "throw it over the transom" model, this engendered both speed and sharing of ideas. That germ of an idea made its way into software as Agile Development. While there are many agile methodologies, the general concept is that specifiers, programmers, and testers work together in short, iterative, "sprints" to produce executable software. Over multiple sprints, complete, ready-to-release applications can be built.
Lost in translation. While agile development has made it possible to release software more frequently, a few challenges have appeared on the way to nirvana. To the agile purists, I will grant that many of these have to do with incorrect interpretation and implementation, and perhaps not because of fundamental drawbacks in the methodologies. The challenges are amplified when you add offshore development where the advantage of co-located teams disappears. They are also most acute when software is developed for General Availability to a large and varied customer base, as opposed to internal use within an enterprise. Here are some of the pitfalls I have observed over the years:
What we have here is a failure to communicate. With apologies to "Cool Hand Luke", one of the main complaints I have seen is, "We don't know what is coming, and when!" We have moved from exhaustive, written requirements to writing nothing down. The refrain is that the sprint teams communicate with each other, and are on top of release content. Some will add that everything can be discerned from documentation within the code. The problem is that there are many stakeholders outside the sprint team, such as sales, marketing, professional services, and support. These people are not adept at reading code, and think in terms of functions and applications, as opposed to individual features. The result often is that market facing groups either oversell or undersell the product (more often the former!).
Who's on first? While sprint teams are cohesive and democratic, the flip side is that it can result in no one at the helm. While the methodologies call for a "function customer" who signs off on software content and quality, this role is often missing in action. Either the role is completely absent, or it is relegated to a Product Manager who is more of a Product Marketer than someone who can go head-to-head with a technician. In the absence of this key role, many cooks jump in to influence the software broth in one direction or the other, resulting in content churn. The process is agile yes, but highly unstable.
Tried and tested. Agile methodologies like test driven development put testing and quality at the center of the process. In practice, however, quality often ends up getting the short end of the stick. The very expectation of agility can compress timelines due to unrealistic promises made to customers. In the rush to "get it out of the door", thorough testing is skipped, and some vendors essentially do their quality assurance on the customer's dime, by continuously band-aiding software at the customer site until it works. In extreme cases, this becomes a license to hack with little regard to version control, belying the very concept of "General Availability". While poor quality is not limited to agile methods, the less rigid process restrictions can exacerbate the tendency in organizations that already have a culture of treating quality lightly.
Customs and traditions. In organizations that cater to customers of varied sizes, the concept of General Availability can be turned on its head. There is often the case of a large customer that wants software customized to meet a unique need. There are very few vendors that have the discipline to examine whether that particular capability warrants inclusion in the software delivered to the general marketplace. The path of least resistance is to include it as a base capability that is "configurable". Over time, the preponderance of configurable customizations makes the software incredibly difficult to implement and support. Again, the lack of a process to adjudicate the "base versus custom" question can result in a multi-headed Hydra, with hidden heads that can appear to bite you when you least expect it.
Distant shores. Every one of the problems discussed explode in complexity when offshore development is involved. The communication challenge now includes time zones, national cultures, and language. The concept of sprint teams working in iterations is predicated on the concept of co-located personnel who can discuss, white-board, and resolve questions face-to-face. Getting this done with people somewhere else on the planet is very difficult, and contributes to hidden costs in offshore development that can obliterate the wage differential in the early stages of the offshore journey. The challenge can be overcome, but it takes special focus and attention to drive out the inefficiencies.
Brave new world. The benefits of agile development have ensured that it is here to stay in most environments. The word to the wise is that getting it to work right involves recognizing the pitfalls, and addressing them involving the right stakeholders. I would not be surprised if many of you recognized your organizations in some of the challenges I have outlined. It is important to recognize that getting software development to work is not just the purview of the programmers alone. Someone said, "War is too important to be left to the generals". If you'll allow the stretch, let me end by saying, "Software is too important to be left to programmers, and methodologies."
What do you think?
Much of our world is made possible by software. There are myriad software systems that manage and move our money, keep track of our health histories, light our homes and offices, and indeed even enable you to read this post. While the sheer scale of accomplishment from zeros and ones flitting about at the speed of light is astounding, the manner in which some of these systems are developed, tested, and delivered raises a few questions.
Over the falls in a barrel. The early years of evolution in software development owed much to needs of the defense and aerospace industries. These were highly mission-critical systems that had to work correctly almost ten times out of ten. A linear process that involved detailed specifications, technical designs, strict coding discipline, reviews, and rigorous testing ensured the delivery of many high performance systems.
A version of this made its way into the commercial marketplace under the broad "waterfall process" moniker. The series of hand-offs, from product management, to architecture, design, development and testing, with intermediate review cycles, hearkened a series of waterfalls as in a cataract. While the process worked well for the most part, it lacked speed. The many steps limited organizations to one or two releases to the marketplace a year. It was difficult to nimbly respond to competitive and regulatory changes. If changes were not included early enough in the cycle, it was tantamount to missing an exit on a tollway, and waiting for the next one.
Sprints around the racetrack. In the 1970's, the automotive industry introduced the concept of "simultaneous engineering", where design engineers, manufacturing engineers, and quality control worked together in teams. As opposed to the linear, "throw it over the transom" model, this engendered both speed and sharing of ideas. That germ of an idea made its way into software as Agile Development. While there are many agile methodologies, the general concept is that specifiers, programmers, and testers work together in short, iterative, "sprints" to produce executable software. Over multiple sprints, complete, ready-to-release applications can be built.
Lost in translation. While agile development has made it possible to release software more frequently, a few challenges have appeared on the way to nirvana. To the agile purists, I will grant that many of these have to do with incorrect interpretation and implementation, and perhaps not because of fundamental drawbacks in the methodologies. The challenges are amplified when you add offshore development where the advantage of co-located teams disappears. They are also most acute when software is developed for General Availability to a large and varied customer base, as opposed to internal use within an enterprise. Here are some of the pitfalls I have observed over the years:
What we have here is a failure to communicate. With apologies to "Cool Hand Luke", one of the main complaints I have seen is, "We don't know what is coming, and when!" We have moved from exhaustive, written requirements to writing nothing down. The refrain is that the sprint teams communicate with each other, and are on top of release content. Some will add that everything can be discerned from documentation within the code. The problem is that there are many stakeholders outside the sprint team, such as sales, marketing, professional services, and support. These people are not adept at reading code, and think in terms of functions and applications, as opposed to individual features. The result often is that market facing groups either oversell or undersell the product (more often the former!).
Who's on first? While sprint teams are cohesive and democratic, the flip side is that it can result in no one at the helm. While the methodologies call for a "function customer" who signs off on software content and quality, this role is often missing in action. Either the role is completely absent, or it is relegated to a Product Manager who is more of a Product Marketer than someone who can go head-to-head with a technician. In the absence of this key role, many cooks jump in to influence the software broth in one direction or the other, resulting in content churn. The process is agile yes, but highly unstable.
Tried and tested. Agile methodologies like test driven development put testing and quality at the center of the process. In practice, however, quality often ends up getting the short end of the stick. The very expectation of agility can compress timelines due to unrealistic promises made to customers. In the rush to "get it out of the door", thorough testing is skipped, and some vendors essentially do their quality assurance on the customer's dime, by continuously band-aiding software at the customer site until it works. In extreme cases, this becomes a license to hack with little regard to version control, belying the very concept of "General Availability". While poor quality is not limited to agile methods, the less rigid process restrictions can exacerbate the tendency in organizations that already have a culture of treating quality lightly.
Customs and traditions. In organizations that cater to customers of varied sizes, the concept of General Availability can be turned on its head. There is often the case of a large customer that wants software customized to meet a unique need. There are very few vendors that have the discipline to examine whether that particular capability warrants inclusion in the software delivered to the general marketplace. The path of least resistance is to include it as a base capability that is "configurable". Over time, the preponderance of configurable customizations makes the software incredibly difficult to implement and support. Again, the lack of a process to adjudicate the "base versus custom" question can result in a multi-headed Hydra, with hidden heads that can appear to bite you when you least expect it.
Distant shores. Every one of the problems discussed explode in complexity when offshore development is involved. The communication challenge now includes time zones, national cultures, and language. The concept of sprint teams working in iterations is predicated on the concept of co-located personnel who can discuss, white-board, and resolve questions face-to-face. Getting this done with people somewhere else on the planet is very difficult, and contributes to hidden costs in offshore development that can obliterate the wage differential in the early stages of the offshore journey. The challenge can be overcome, but it takes special focus and attention to drive out the inefficiencies.
Brave new world. The benefits of agile development have ensured that it is here to stay in most environments. The word to the wise is that getting it to work right involves recognizing the pitfalls, and addressing them involving the right stakeholders. I would not be surprised if many of you recognized your organizations in some of the challenges I have outlined. It is important to recognize that getting software development to work is not just the purview of the programmers alone. Someone said, "War is too important to be left to the generals". If you'll allow the stretch, let me end by saying, "Software is too important to be left to programmers, and methodologies."
What do you think?
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
The power of social media
Posted by Mark Brousseau
There’s a lot of buzz around the power of social media as a tool companies can use for demonstrating their thought leadership, and engaging – and potentially empowering – their target audiences.
To be sure, effectively using social media can help companies:
… Generate visibility, name recognition and credibility for their business
… Boost Google Search Engine results and increase Web traffic
… Strengthen business partnerships
… Generate qualified leads
But what’s the most effective ways to use social media?
Broadly speaking, there are 5 key steps for successfully using social media:
1. Develop a strategy
2. Establish a presence (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)
3. Look for ways to expand the reach of your message
4. Look for ways to nurture existing and new relationships
5. Properly maintain your social media presence
For instance, Twitter, with its 140-character limit, can help drive prospects to your company (in fact, many companies think of Twitter as a search engine like Google). With Twitter, companies can promote contests, share timely information, distribute useful (read: educational) links, personify their brand, build credibility and influence, and even follow their competitors (it does work both ways!).
The key to successfully leveraging Twitter is for the user to sound more like someone who just happens to work at your company, rather than someone whose sole purpose is to push your company. You can accomplish this by personifying your company, answering and posting questions/issues, announcing sales, deals and corporate updates, and generally building buzz around your company.
What you don’t want to do is sound like a press release, or “spam” followers with links to your company website (don’t worry: with the right buzz, followers will seek out the site on their own!).
These are some ideas to get companies started.
So, which social media strategies are working – or not working – for your company?
There’s a lot of buzz around the power of social media as a tool companies can use for demonstrating their thought leadership, and engaging – and potentially empowering – their target audiences.
To be sure, effectively using social media can help companies:
… Generate visibility, name recognition and credibility for their business
… Boost Google Search Engine results and increase Web traffic
… Strengthen business partnerships
… Generate qualified leads
But what’s the most effective ways to use social media?
Broadly speaking, there are 5 key steps for successfully using social media:
1. Develop a strategy
2. Establish a presence (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)
3. Look for ways to expand the reach of your message
4. Look for ways to nurture existing and new relationships
5. Properly maintain your social media presence
For instance, Twitter, with its 140-character limit, can help drive prospects to your company (in fact, many companies think of Twitter as a search engine like Google). With Twitter, companies can promote contests, share timely information, distribute useful (read: educational) links, personify their brand, build credibility and influence, and even follow their competitors (it does work both ways!).
The key to successfully leveraging Twitter is for the user to sound more like someone who just happens to work at your company, rather than someone whose sole purpose is to push your company. You can accomplish this by personifying your company, answering and posting questions/issues, announcing sales, deals and corporate updates, and generally building buzz around your company.
What you don’t want to do is sound like a press release, or “spam” followers with links to your company website (don’t worry: with the right buzz, followers will seek out the site on their own!).
These are some ideas to get companies started.
So, which social media strategies are working – or not working – for your company?
Monday, August 2, 2010
Bridging the business/IT gap
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Business and IT collaboration is critical to the success of a data warehousing project, Alison Torres, director, Teradata Warehouse Consulting told attendees during a presentation at the FTA Technology Conference and Exposition at the Grand Hyatt Buckhead in Atlanta. “The most successful data warehouses have a team of IT and business representatives with an executive sponsor,” Torres said.
A data warehouse is a place that brings together data from disparate systems, which enables timely, accurate decision-making in support of strategic and tactical business initiatives, Torres explained.
“The only relevant measures of data warehousing success are business impact and value,” she added.
Torres said the keys to business and IT working together on a data warehousing project are:
… Building/evolving the vision together
… Appreciating IT’s challenges
… Building the business/data model together
… Championing the data warehouse together
… Creating overlapping organizations
… Establishing meaningful accountabilities and service level agreements
So how do you get started? Torres offered several suggestions:
… Assemble a cross-functional team with representation across all business units, corporate departments and IT services
… Hold weekly business data modeling sessions
… Develop consistent business definitions across all levels of the business
… Map data requirements generated from business modeling sessions
… Store the data model in a tool
… Produce detailed documentation
Additionally, IT must understand the business impact of data problems, Torres said.
“When data is unavailable, business opportunities are lost, perhaps forever,” Torres explained. “Late information is, in most cases, as good as no information. It is imperative that IT understands this.”
It’s through this type of collaboration that organizations can increase the odds of success of their data warehouse project.
What do you think?
Business and IT collaboration is critical to the success of a data warehousing project, Alison Torres, director, Teradata Warehouse Consulting told attendees during a presentation at the FTA Technology Conference and Exposition at the Grand Hyatt Buckhead in Atlanta. “The most successful data warehouses have a team of IT and business representatives with an executive sponsor,” Torres said.
A data warehouse is a place that brings together data from disparate systems, which enables timely, accurate decision-making in support of strategic and tactical business initiatives, Torres explained.
“The only relevant measures of data warehousing success are business impact and value,” she added.
Torres said the keys to business and IT working together on a data warehousing project are:
… Building/evolving the vision together
… Appreciating IT’s challenges
… Building the business/data model together
… Championing the data warehouse together
… Creating overlapping organizations
… Establishing meaningful accountabilities and service level agreements
So how do you get started? Torres offered several suggestions:
… Assemble a cross-functional team with representation across all business units, corporate departments and IT services
… Hold weekly business data modeling sessions
… Develop consistent business definitions across all levels of the business
… Map data requirements generated from business modeling sessions
… Store the data model in a tool
… Produce detailed documentation
Additionally, IT must understand the business impact of data problems, Torres said.
“When data is unavailable, business opportunities are lost, perhaps forever,” Torres explained. “Late information is, in most cases, as good as no information. It is imperative that IT understands this.”
It’s through this type of collaboration that organizations can increase the odds of success of their data warehouse project.
What do you think?
Sunday, August 1, 2010
State Government IT: Version 2010
Posted by Mark Brousseau
As with every arm of government in today’s environment, state government chief information officers (CIOs) must do more with less. A search for lower costs will drive the agendas of many state CIOs for the next few years, as they look for ways to enhance IT performance. According to the 2010 State CIO Survey, conducted by Grant Thornton LLP, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers and TechAmerica, two-thirds of state and territorial CIOs face budget decreases in 2011 through 2013. However, some state CIOs see a silver lining — public sector IT departments are increasing the use of shared services, reassessing contracts and leveraging economies of scale when purchasing.
Three out of four CIOs say their offices receive some form of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funding. Eighty percent say other state agencies have also benefitted from ARRA money. Although additional funding undoubtedly helps cash-strapped IT departments, it’s not always easy to determine the impact on performance — one-third of CIOs say they do not formally measure how IT contributes to agency missions and strategies.
At a time when government and citizens are demanding increased transparency, CIOs must find ways to demonstrate the efficiency and value of IT, Grant Thornton concludes.
What do you think?
As with every arm of government in today’s environment, state government chief information officers (CIOs) must do more with less. A search for lower costs will drive the agendas of many state CIOs for the next few years, as they look for ways to enhance IT performance. According to the 2010 State CIO Survey, conducted by Grant Thornton LLP, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers and TechAmerica, two-thirds of state and territorial CIOs face budget decreases in 2011 through 2013. However, some state CIOs see a silver lining — public sector IT departments are increasing the use of shared services, reassessing contracts and leveraging economies of scale when purchasing.
Three out of four CIOs say their offices receive some form of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funding. Eighty percent say other state agencies have also benefitted from ARRA money. Although additional funding undoubtedly helps cash-strapped IT departments, it’s not always easy to determine the impact on performance — one-third of CIOs say they do not formally measure how IT contributes to agency missions and strategies.
At a time when government and citizens are demanding increased transparency, CIOs must find ways to demonstrate the efficiency and value of IT, Grant Thornton concludes.
What do you think?
Friday, July 30, 2010
The evolution of remote capture
By Wally Vogel (www.wvogel@creditron.com)
When remote deposit capture (RDC) first burst onto the scene, it was billed as a way for companies to eliminate daily trips to the bank. Today, reducing the time and costs associated with depositing checks is still a key factor in the adoption of the technology. But application of the technology has also evolved into a compliment to remittance processing, such as a way for far-flung sales agents to capture check images more quickly – helping to drive faster funds availability and enhanced service.
RDC is a product of The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (“Check 21”), a federal law enacted in 2004 that allows billers to electronically capture and transmit (via X9.37 file format) images of checks to their financial institution for clearing. Integrated balancing and automated character recognition tools assist billers in building balanced deposits. Once deposits are transmitted, original checks are truncated (retained) and eventually destroyed. Upon receipt of the file, the bank validates the items, performs any necessary corrections, and creates an image cash letter (or ICL) for deposit.
A Compliment to Remittance Processing
It didn’t take long for billers to recognize that RDC could be used to compliment -- and streamline -- remittance processing, which has historically been a back-office task. By capturing payment images and data at the point of presentment, and integrating the images and data with the back-office payments stream -- rather than redirecting the payments to the back-office -- billers can accelerate processing and funds availability; eliminate the costs to ship or transport payments to the back-office; offload some of the work from their back-office staff (and maybe even offload the work from their staff altogether); free back-office staff to perform other functions; and reduce paper handling and the associated costs. What’s more, capturing payments information sooner provides benefits such as faster posting, better visibility into receivables, and faster responses to customer inquiries.
The best part: remote deposit capture accomplishes all of this without requiring much upfront cost.
New RDC technologies are further expanding the applicability of the technology as a compliment to back-office remittance processing. For instance, support for flatbed TWAIN scanners enables consumers or remote employees to capture payments without the requirement for a specialized check scanner. Recognizing that the user in this environment may not be trained in payment processing, software guides the user through the scanning process. Another advancement in RDC is the use of smartphones to capture payment images. This enables field agents to capture payment images without having to transport or ship them to the back-office for processing – greatly speeding posting.
The Bottom Line
By complimenting back-office remittance processing with RDC, funds are available sooner, overall costs are improved, and customer service is enhanced. And because of the low overhead associated with RDC, growth in the biller’s remittance volume can be accommodated without a corresponding growth in the biller’s back-office infrastructure – meaning they can avoid a lot of capital expense.
When remote deposit capture (RDC) first burst onto the scene, it was billed as a way for companies to eliminate daily trips to the bank. Today, reducing the time and costs associated with depositing checks is still a key factor in the adoption of the technology. But application of the technology has also evolved into a compliment to remittance processing, such as a way for far-flung sales agents to capture check images more quickly – helping to drive faster funds availability and enhanced service.
RDC is a product of The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (“Check 21”), a federal law enacted in 2004 that allows billers to electronically capture and transmit (via X9.37 file format) images of checks to their financial institution for clearing. Integrated balancing and automated character recognition tools assist billers in building balanced deposits. Once deposits are transmitted, original checks are truncated (retained) and eventually destroyed. Upon receipt of the file, the bank validates the items, performs any necessary corrections, and creates an image cash letter (or ICL) for deposit.
A Compliment to Remittance Processing
It didn’t take long for billers to recognize that RDC could be used to compliment -- and streamline -- remittance processing, which has historically been a back-office task. By capturing payment images and data at the point of presentment, and integrating the images and data with the back-office payments stream -- rather than redirecting the payments to the back-office -- billers can accelerate processing and funds availability; eliminate the costs to ship or transport payments to the back-office; offload some of the work from their back-office staff (and maybe even offload the work from their staff altogether); free back-office staff to perform other functions; and reduce paper handling and the associated costs. What’s more, capturing payments information sooner provides benefits such as faster posting, better visibility into receivables, and faster responses to customer inquiries.
The best part: remote deposit capture accomplishes all of this without requiring much upfront cost.
New RDC technologies are further expanding the applicability of the technology as a compliment to back-office remittance processing. For instance, support for flatbed TWAIN scanners enables consumers or remote employees to capture payments without the requirement for a specialized check scanner. Recognizing that the user in this environment may not be trained in payment processing, software guides the user through the scanning process. Another advancement in RDC is the use of smartphones to capture payment images. This enables field agents to capture payment images without having to transport or ship them to the back-office for processing – greatly speeding posting.
The Bottom Line
By complimenting back-office remittance processing with RDC, funds are available sooner, overall costs are improved, and customer service is enhanced. And because of the low overhead associated with RDC, growth in the biller’s remittance volume can be accommodated without a corresponding growth in the biller’s back-office infrastructure – meaning they can avoid a lot of capital expense.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Network like it’s your job
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Finding a job in today’s job market can be like conquering a new frontier for many job seekers. With the unemployment rate still over 9 percent, the job market has been flooded with tons of competition for job seekers—many of whom are experiencing a culture shock when they send out their résumés. After all, the days of mailing in your résumé and receiving a phone call to set up an interview are over. Today, everything is done online, from sending in your résumé to setting up your first interview—and nine times out of ten, you’re lucky to receive any kind of response, even if it’s an automatic one thanking you for your submission.
It doesn’t take long to discover that in a virtual world it can be very difficult to get noticed by the decision makers whom you need to impress in order to land the job. Maribeth Kuzmeski says there are three easy steps to getting noticed in today’s digitally dominated job market—networking, networking, networking.
“Today you need more than a résumé and a cover letter to get that dream job,” says Kuzmeski, author of The Connectors: How the World’s Most Successful Businesspeople Build Relationships and Win Clients for Life. “Think of yourself as CEO of Me, Myself, and I, Inc. You need to be doing everything you can to get the word out about your brand. That means networking.
“Great networkers are capable of leaving something behind with everyone they encounter—a thought, a memory, or a connection. This is exactly what you need to do if you are in the job market. You need to make strong connections, become a relationship builder. You want to be the first person who comes to mind when someone in your network hears about a great job opening.”
Kuzmeski offers advice for how you can network your way to a great new job:
... Rejuvenate your résumé.
... Build your online résumé using LinkedIn.
... Get face-to-face with potential employers!
... Make an impact by using video.
... Become a contrarian networker.
... Let them do the talking.
... Be prepared to pitch yourself in fifteen seconds.
... Network to the people you know.
... Get involved in organizations that are connected to your profession.
... Volunteer.
... Be a mover and a shaker.
... Always be networking.
“Trying to find a job in such an overcrowded job market can be a daunting task,” says Kuzmeski. “But by placing a renewed focus on networking, you open yourself up to many more opportunities than just the ones on the job boards or those being offered at your local job fair. I truly feel that there are only six degrees of separation between everyone in the world—or at the very least the U.S. Every time you make a new connection you get that much closer to a great new opportunity.”
What do you think?
Finding a job in today’s job market can be like conquering a new frontier for many job seekers. With the unemployment rate still over 9 percent, the job market has been flooded with tons of competition for job seekers—many of whom are experiencing a culture shock when they send out their résumés. After all, the days of mailing in your résumé and receiving a phone call to set up an interview are over. Today, everything is done online, from sending in your résumé to setting up your first interview—and nine times out of ten, you’re lucky to receive any kind of response, even if it’s an automatic one thanking you for your submission.
It doesn’t take long to discover that in a virtual world it can be very difficult to get noticed by the decision makers whom you need to impress in order to land the job. Maribeth Kuzmeski says there are three easy steps to getting noticed in today’s digitally dominated job market—networking, networking, networking.
“Today you need more than a résumé and a cover letter to get that dream job,” says Kuzmeski, author of The Connectors: How the World’s Most Successful Businesspeople Build Relationships and Win Clients for Life. “Think of yourself as CEO of Me, Myself, and I, Inc. You need to be doing everything you can to get the word out about your brand. That means networking.
“Great networkers are capable of leaving something behind with everyone they encounter—a thought, a memory, or a connection. This is exactly what you need to do if you are in the job market. You need to make strong connections, become a relationship builder. You want to be the first person who comes to mind when someone in your network hears about a great job opening.”
Kuzmeski offers advice for how you can network your way to a great new job:
... Rejuvenate your résumé.
... Build your online résumé using LinkedIn.
... Get face-to-face with potential employers!
... Make an impact by using video.
... Become a contrarian networker.
... Let them do the talking.
... Be prepared to pitch yourself in fifteen seconds.
... Network to the people you know.
... Get involved in organizations that are connected to your profession.
... Volunteer.
... Be a mover and a shaker.
... Always be networking.
“Trying to find a job in such an overcrowded job market can be a daunting task,” says Kuzmeski. “But by placing a renewed focus on networking, you open yourself up to many more opportunities than just the ones on the job boards or those being offered at your local job fair. I truly feel that there are only six degrees of separation between everyone in the world—or at the very least the U.S. Every time you make a new connection you get that much closer to a great new opportunity.”
What do you think?
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Electronic invoicing gains momentum
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Accounts Payable (AP) functions are still drowning in paper, but that may be about to change. According to APQC’s Open Standards Benchmarking in accounts payable, on average 69.4 percent of invoices still require manual re-keying of line-item data, and only 20.1 percent of invoice line items are received electronically. Although myriad technologies perform an incredible array of tasks in successful companies around the globe, APQC (www.apqc.org) notes that AP departments are only now approaching the crucial tipping point where electronic invoicing will overtake manual, paper-based processes, a milestone expected to occur in 2011.
Electronic payment systems now on the market promise efficient communication, reliable audit trails, and faster/smoother data processing between internal departments and external suppliers. Differing systems offer various levels of transparency, approvals, and monitoring from procurement to payment. However, the common theme is less paper and less manual keying of data.
APQC says a typical transaction begins when a purchase order request is entered into the buyer’s system; once a supervisor provides approval, the appropriate vendor is notified. The vendor then generates an invoice while simultaneously arranging delivery of their goods or services. The invoice is then routed electronically to the AP department, which matches the invoice to the purchase order and, often, other documents that prove that goods or services were received as expected. Once the verification is complete, the transfer of the payment is then triggered.
The level of automation and sophistication can vary widely; a PDF of an invoice sent via email sits on one end of the automation spectrum, with a fully “touchless” integrated system that connects buyer and seller at the other end.
Automated payment technology has been in place at many large companies for years, but the systems were often large-scale customized initiatives, expensive both to build and maintain. As more advanced technology tools arrive on the market, the costs as well as the barriers to implementation continue to fall, APQC concludes.
What do you think?
Accounts Payable (AP) functions are still drowning in paper, but that may be about to change. According to APQC’s Open Standards Benchmarking in accounts payable, on average 69.4 percent of invoices still require manual re-keying of line-item data, and only 20.1 percent of invoice line items are received electronically. Although myriad technologies perform an incredible array of tasks in successful companies around the globe, APQC (www.apqc.org) notes that AP departments are only now approaching the crucial tipping point where electronic invoicing will overtake manual, paper-based processes, a milestone expected to occur in 2011.
Electronic payment systems now on the market promise efficient communication, reliable audit trails, and faster/smoother data processing between internal departments and external suppliers. Differing systems offer various levels of transparency, approvals, and monitoring from procurement to payment. However, the common theme is less paper and less manual keying of data.
APQC says a typical transaction begins when a purchase order request is entered into the buyer’s system; once a supervisor provides approval, the appropriate vendor is notified. The vendor then generates an invoice while simultaneously arranging delivery of their goods or services. The invoice is then routed electronically to the AP department, which matches the invoice to the purchase order and, often, other documents that prove that goods or services were received as expected. Once the verification is complete, the transfer of the payment is then triggered.
The level of automation and sophistication can vary widely; a PDF of an invoice sent via email sits on one end of the automation spectrum, with a fully “touchless” integrated system that connects buyer and seller at the other end.
Automated payment technology has been in place at many large companies for years, but the systems were often large-scale customized initiatives, expensive both to build and maintain. As more advanced technology tools arrive on the market, the costs as well as the barriers to implementation continue to fall, APQC concludes.
What do you think?
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